I have recently fitted EBC greenstuff to my MY98, I've treated them gently for 300 miles. Braking seems to be very spongy now ... and at high speed the brakes are very poor ... triple the stopping distance with previous (genuine subaru) pads.

I also had the brake fluid changed about 500miles before the new pads were fitted and am wondering if this may be partly the cause of my problems.

Does anybody have any ideas on this as I'm quite worried about lack of stopping power! and am not sure where to start looking for the problem!

Pads ??? Fluid ??? Master Cylinder ???

David P

I've just had them fitted and find them very good. Stef, the driving wizard/nutter of Scoobynet fame has gone so far as saying they're the best road pad he has ever used.

Maybe it's something else?

MS

It sounds like master cylinder / servo partial failure, letting air bleed into the system

I thought it must be something other than the pads as I've only ever heard good reports about them ... I did notice the brakes getting worse towards the end of my last pads but assumed it was the pads wearing out.

Maybe that was the start of this problem.

Is there a specific way to bleed the brakes on a scoob???

David P

Dpcc,
Funny, well not realy, I have exactly the same problem with my car EBC Green stuff pads and soggy brakes. I feel as though I have to pump them to get them to work. I got Lexauto to change the fluid (I know - but it was ony £20) and it did not seem to make any difference.
The brakes do not give me any confindence at the moment!
Have you sound a solution?
Alex

I have had the front brakes bled again today ... manually (rather than with the garages vacuum bleeding device).

Immediate impression was a vast improvement ... I can now lock the wheels or trip the ABS from a 30mph stamp on em!

But after 10miles ish I think they are going spongy again ... will see how it goes over a few days .... I think if it goes back to spongy land I'm looking at a new master cylinder (garage suspect this). Not a nice thought at 210+vat!

DP

Isn't there an inexpensive bulk head mod that can be done as apparantly the bulk head flexes under heavy braking causing a spongy feeling pedal.
A simple fix (think fitted its around £60) makes a big difference apparantly.

Can someone comment on this - or correct me if I am wrong ?

Thanks

Ro.

Ro,

You are correct - there is such a thing although some people say it doesn't do much and others swear by it ;)

I fitted EBC greens on my Sti recently after wearing out the Pagids - I find they are very good after the first stop - initially they are a bit spongy, but then they are great. I have braided hoses, pagid discs and dot 5 fluid if it makes a difference.

Went back to my dealer yesterday to have the brakes bled again. They assure me they have checked the master cylinder and it's not that!

One of the mechanics runs greenstuff on his car and said it took him 800miles to bed them in on brand new grooved discs, and as mine are not grooved and not new it could take longer to bed them in.

They advised another few hundred miles and see how it goes. The brakes are now intermittently good ... if you brake in short bursts they are very good but if you hold them on say 70 - 20 they seem to fade away after a few secs.

Shimster have you got anywhere with yours yet??

David P

I have greenstuff and have nothing but praise for them. I drive on my brakes, in other words, speed up then brake, rather than just letting speed drop off, so i'm rather hard on brakes. Had them in nearly a year now, and think they might be getting worn, but still they suprise me.

Kinda agree with the 70 -20 thing, does seem to fade, but if I stamp on em, they work!

David P,

It sounds like we've exactly the same symtoms - I've checked with the garage and, no my master cylinder is also working properly!
The garage suggested I clamped off all the calipers, checked the braking again (how?), and then remove each clamp one at a time to find the area of the trouble. Lot of hard work, but I can not put up with these brakes. Another suggestion was that one of the flexible brake hoses was bulging! - I hope not!

Please keep me upto date with anything you've found

Alex

They did the clamping thing to my brakes ... and told me the problem is definately at the front ... (this is also how they tested the master cylinder)

The brakes just seem to be hit and miss ... sometimes they're spot on and other times they're not there .... left it stood for an hour earlier, when I came back to it ... first press of the brakes went almost to the floor, felt like I was having to pump them up b4 use!

David

I may be wrong but I thought it said on the EBC price list that green stuff were not recommended for impreza turbos and red stuff should be used

Never seen an EBC price list so not sure ... bought mine from needforspeed.co.uk

I've only ever heard good reports aobut greenstuff and scoobs.

BTW Mine are getting better slowly .... still not too confident in them yet!

David

had a look
there is nothing to say green stuff shouldn't be used on impreza turbo's
but after subaru impreza 2.0 turbo on the under red stuff it does say recommended, on the web site it says green stuff is suitable for heavy sedans

Do EBC see scoob drivers as having more money to spend on thier cars maybe?

I have seen thier advert that says we should use red stuff,but I had greens fitted at PE last october and have had no probs since.

Steve

The Demon Tweeks direct catalogue also states that Redstuffs are "recommended" for their Turbo Grooved disks.

BTW - Turbo Grooved disks went on at the weekend so will report back on how they perform with the redstuff pads soon.

Ro.

I also may be able to contribute to this thread - I fitted Turbo Groove and EBC Greenstuff to my MY97 over the weekend.

Initial impressions (though of course I'm still bedding them in) are good. I'm keen to stamp on them at 70 but not just yet .... I'll give 'em a couple of hundred miles!

Fitted Greens with Turbogroove to my MY99 and warped two sets. Fitted reds and no warping but no where near as good bite, use from cold and not particularly impressed with high speed braking.......

:(

Heard alot about EBC discs warping, anyone recomend a similar priced disc that will work well with greenstuff pads
Thanks

Sorry to jump in on this post mate!

As same as Scoobyjawa
Gone back to Subaru pads. Find them fine with the Turbo Disks.

Catalunya74

The disks are fine. But use them with greens or "Maybe" reds can lead to warping. EBC pads get very hot. SDB contacted me about this. He made a very good point. Warping can be caused by not taking foot of brake at traffic lights etc . The pad contact area is not cooling as fast as the rest of the disk.

Cheers Luke,
Only problem i have is that ive just bought some green stuff pads, So ideally i could do with a disk less likely to be warped than EBC's. Good point about the Braking at lights though, makes alot of sense
Thanks

-Scoobyjawa quote-
Fitted Greens with Turbogroove to my MY99 and warped two sets. Fitted reds and no warping but no where near as good bite, use from cold and not particularly impressed with high speed braking.......
-unquote-
Did you use the new V4 compound?
Talked to EBC on the phone last week and they said there had been
problems with overheating and cracked discs with the 'old' Green
pads, but apparently not with the V4, as these are made to comply
with the EC90 regulations which also means they give a bit less
friction than the old Greenstuff pads.

Regards,
Simen.

I had the Greenstuff V4 and they lasted about 10k... Impressive initial bite but would be cr*p on the track, I could fade them after about 20mins of heavy driving :)

That said as road pads they were excellent

Simen,

:eek: Absolutely no idea mate ;) They were fitted by Tyres Northampton on all occasions so whatever they chucked on - wouldn't know which type it was.... :(

Cheers
Neil

After a few hundred miles more use my brakes seem fine :-)

Stood on them pretty hard today at varying speeds with very good results.... also saved me from one near miss!

Thanks for all the input on this one... maybe they just did need more time to bed in.

David

David,
Mines are getting better slowly, except now and again they seem to have an "bad" moment and the pedal goes down futher- maybe it's me, but it still does not give me the confindence to jump on the brakes at the last moment into a corner! I think I've found out partially what the problem was, I think a braked a bit hard early on before the pads were fully bedded in and this cooked the surface! I abraided the pads and have let them bed down again - what a pain!
It seems daft to have pads that need soooo long to bed in!

Alex

DITTO!

Mine still have the odd bad moment!

And I too braked too hard and cooked them too soon! Is there a way I can improve the bedding in speed??

David